Denmark: Police don't think mystery bomber had a religious motive

Denmark: Police don't think mystery bomber had a religious motive



Sources close to the investigation (DA) say police don't think Doukaev had a religious motive.

Not religious

Abdulla Delchad, an Iraqi who runs a shawarma bar says he spoke to Doukaev often, and that he was a run-of-the-mill believing Muslim.  He never had problems with him and he was surprised to hear that he's imprisoned in Copenhagen.

In June the family - Doukaev's mother, his sister and her son, and his own son - moved away and nobody has seen them since.

Doukaev's neighbor, Edouard Francart, also says that Doukaev didn't look religious.  His mother, Kiesa Akaeva, was a Chechen doctor, but did not receive a permit to practice in Belgium.  A Muslim woman who now lives in her house says that Akaeva was not particularly religious and never wore a headscarf.

His former trainer, Fabian de Taille, says that Doukaeiv was a practicing Muslim but that he was never aggressive or extremist in any way.



Muhammed cartoons

The trainer who identified Doukaiev was Albert Syben.  Belgian authorities are not allowing Syben to be interviewed, but his wife told Ekstra Bladet that when he toured Copenhagen in 2008 with his school, he saw several graffitti that insulted him (DA) as a religious Muslim.

"He was very religious and practiced his religion and I had the impression he was a pleasant and friendly person.  But I know he was very peevish about some graffiti that insulted Islam or Muslims.

She also told B.T. and Berlingske Tidende that since 2005 and 2006, Doukaiev was very furious about the Muhammed cartoons (DA).


Pro-Russian

Doukaiev's former brother-in-law, Shepa Bersanov, told Danish news agency Ritzau that Doukaiev often expressed pro-Russian sympathies (DA) in the Chechen conflict and that he wasn't very religious.

Thomas Bindesbøll Larsen head of the Danish-Chechen support organization, says that the forces of Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov, who is pro-Russian, are recruiting agents among Chechens in-exile. Doukaiev's targets might have been prominent Chechens in Denmark.

Shepa Bersanov agrees.  He told Jyllands-Posten that Doukaeiv hated the mujaheddin and that he was probably sent to Denmark by the Russians.

Austrian police believe Kadyrov is linked to the murder of a Chechen activist in Vienna last year.



Hit-man

Swedish terrorism researcher Magnus Ranstorp says that Doukaeiv acted more like a trained, professional criminal than an Islamic terrorist.  Like a hit-man or an agent on a mission.  He thinks this might be related to gang warfare.

Anti-Russian Chechen terrorists or Chechen Islamists haven't targeted Western Europe until
now, instead focusing on Russia and neighboring countries in the Caucus.

Belgian police say that the Chechen community in Liège (DA) and southern Belgium is extremely closed off and infected by organized crime.


Fifty minutes

The man who discovered the identity (DA) of the mystery bomber is Jeppe Bøje Nielsen, a photojournalist apprentice for Berlingske Media. He was asked by the news editor Casper Hjorth to call up a list of boxing clubs.  Fifty minutes and seven phone calls he found him.  Jeppe Bøje Nielsen told Journalisten.dk that it was almost too easy, and that it was really just luck.

 See also: Denmark: Bomber a Chechen from Belgium